The utterly mortifying moment Hugh Jackman peed his pants live on stage.

It may have been decades ago, but there’s one incident that still sticks in Hugh Jackman’s mind as undoubtedly the most mortifying moment of his life.

And boy, we get it. It’s the stuff awkward teen nightmares are made of and there’s no other way to put it, it’s just plain embarrassing – even if you are the acting/singing/dancing sensation that is Hugh Jackman.

You see, back in the days before Jackman was a Hollywood star, he started out by dabbling in theatre in Melbourne, Australia.

The first musical show he ever did showcasing his signing and dancing chops was in Beauty and the Beast all the way back in 1996.

He played Gaston and please, take a moment to visualise that in your mind.

As Jackman, now 50, told Rachael Ray in an interview from 2011, “Gaston has red tights, knee high boots, and it’s very physical. I had headaches everyday for two months. I went to an astropath [psychic] and he said ‘Well, you’re dehydrated.'”

He was advised to drink three litres of water a day but the X-Men actor decided to solve the problem then and there by guzzling down four litres of water that day.

You know where this is going… but let’s hear Jackman tell it.

“I’d just peed, but was waiting backstage and I was like, ‘I really need to go again.’ But it was my cue, so I walked on stage really needing to go again,” Jackman later related to Graham Norton on his talk show in 2015.

“That first number was very energetic and I was very exposed in red tights,” he said, adding, “That’s when I realised the muscles you need to release to sing are the very ones you need to tense to hold on…”

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He explained: “As I am about to sing the last note I thought, ‘If I sing this note I’m peeing my pants but if I don’t, I’m going to be humiliated in front of two thousand people’… I was singing and peeing my pants.”

So there you have it – Jackman chose to sing the note correctly rather than give a bad performance and if that’s not dedication we don’t know what is.

And yes, it unfortunately meant he had to let go of his… bladder… and look, we don’t really want to know anymore because that would involved imagining Jackman pee his pants.

According to IMDB, for a split second The Greatest Showman actor thought he had gotten away with it but alas, he really hadn’t.

“I thought, ‘These red tights must be waterproof’. I was laughing as if I’d gotten away with it. But the audience was looking at me funny. It had seeped through and my pants were completely wet,” he said.

It’s a story that Norton himself didn’t even believe, telling Hugh it “sounds unbelievable”, before a slightly red-faced Jackman confirmed it was indeed true.

It’s a moment that still haunts Jackman to this day, labelling it as “my most embarrassing moment in life”.